Fashion: On Punch Hutton’s Spring Shifts

A simple parameter and a lingering question—where to find the perfect shift dress?—was her starting point. And after an elevator chat with a fellow V.F. staffer who was searching for just that, Punch Hutton, deputy editor of Vanity Fairand the editor of the magazine’s Fanfair and Fairground sections, found the answer was simply to make it herself. “Every girl looks good in a shift,” she says—and now in its second season, Punch Shifts stays true to its original proposition, with eight colorful pieces (one for every day of the week, and one for evening). It’s an easy nod to classic day dressing fitting comfortably between *That Girl’*s Marlo Thomas and today’s iteration, The New Girl (Zooey Deschanel). “The idea is for them to fit with special things you already have in your closet, and build around it,” Hutton says. “[It’s] the dress you can wear every day and not have to really think about it.”

Hutton works side by side with Vee Lapnarongchai, formerly of Derek Lam, to sketch, design, and produce the entire collection in New York City’s Garment District. For the moment, the operation is still governable enough to keep her eye on each step of the process—but judging from the response she got after a recent news story (nearly 400 e-mails), there is major growth potential. “After that I knew I had something,” she says. On the working-mom trope (she has a two-year-old daughter) and how she has the time for everything, she offers an unstudied reply: “You make the time for the things you love.”